Group is Totally Committed to minister to the homeless

Group is Totally Committed to minister to the homeless

The open room offers some amenities, like a pool table and furniture, to make the homeless feel more at home. (Julie Bates / Special to The Courier-Tribune)

By Julie BatesSpecial to The Courier-Tribune

Behind the unassuming storefront lies hope. Within the walls resides Asheboro’s only shelter for the homeless. Shelter of Hope is a part of Totally Committed Ministries. Led by Jeff Looney, it helps men with few resources. Far more than a place to spend the night, it is also a church that seeks to heal the broken and lost souls that fate brings to its doors.

Jeff Looney is the senior pastor of Totally Committed. He explains why he works with the homeless.

“I have a hard time thinking about people being hungry and people being cold,” he said. “I have a guy here right now everybody has seen him between here and Franklinville pushing a bicycle — most of the time, he hasn’t got a shirt on — picking up cans in the summer. He is so grateful because it is winter. He’s told me I don’t know how many times that we have kept him from freezing to death. You shouldn’t have to go lay in a Laundromat and wait on the law to run you out just to stay warm that long.”

Looney doesn’t resemble the stereotypical pastor. Although degrees line his wall, he discovered that image tended to frighten away the very people he felt compelled to help.

“That’s why I let my hair grow out. When we would try to go feed the homeless, I couldn’t get close to them. Every time we went around in the woods, they would see us coming. They will just ease on through the woods.

“I asked one, ‘Why are you leaving, we’re bringing you food?’ He said, ‘I know. Just put it up there on the fence like you always do and leave it.’ “

When Looney asked him why he ran, the man replied that he could see Looney was a preacher. When he asked how, the man said, “You look like one.”

Looney decided to change that. He grew out his hair and dressed in more casual clothes and then people started coming up to him.

“I don’t take them Jesus first. I have to get to their need,” he said. “Now some won’t come out of the woods, they would just as soon stay in the woods. Angie (his wife) and I have been down there and seen the camps. There’ll be fires to keep warm. They’re in the parks and behind food stores everywhere all over town. Some of them are in plain view and you can’t see it. But they see every move you make because they are that close to you.”

Looney’s wife works beside him at the shelter and in the many ministries under the umbrella of Totally Committed. Looney may be the head, but he is assisted by five elders and eight other pastors. He notes, “We are a 501(3)C nonprofit. The shelter has its own separate checking account. We have a financial committee. There is a house boss here at all times looking over them. We do a lot of food pantry stuff as well.”

Looney works as a long haul trucker, but his compassion for the homeless is great.

“Why did God choose me to help the homeless? I can’t answer that. It’s a burden that God has put on me that when I go home at night and it’s 18 degrees out, my house is warm. That’s because God has blessed me.

“I could be like a lot of people and say well, ‘It’s their tough luck,’ but sometimes it’s not. Sometimes life has really just rolled them, they got blindsided by something. It can be something as simple as a car accident that can mess up their whole life.”

Angie notes that many people are just one paycheck away from being homeless. It can happen to anyone at any time.

“It’s a ministry. I’ve got my part. She has her part. Nothing but understanding when I have to come out here or when I’m on the road and she has to come out here,” Looney said. “It’s the ministers we have, the elders we have and the people we have. It’s because of their giving that we are able to do this. We do street feedings throughout the year. Just to do 100 plates, barbeque chicken, baked beans, potatoes, rolls and just to carry water out costs us between $500-$700. We used to do them every month. We’ve not done one this year, but in the elders meeting, we have already mentioned that. We cook everything here and put them in the take-out plates and we take it out to the streets.”

The shelter takes no federal funding.

Angie Looney explains why: “If you don’t have an ID, a lot of times, the system won’t have anything to do with you. You have to have some kind of ID or something for them to try to pull you up. If you are funded federally, then you can’t take them if they don’t have identification. I can’t help them if I can’t get to them. I don’t go to them and tell them about Jesus if they’re hungry. I go to them and feed them and then after I’ve taken care of their need I can begin to minister to them.”

Looney notes, “Some of them you can help. A guy was here not long ago. He was drawing nothing. We got him his ID card, got him signed up on Social Security. He ended up getting a place through Housing and it’s a success. He’s not sitting there in the cold wondering what is happening.”

Two area churches (Caraway Baptist and Central Carolina Community Church, also known as C4) provide the shelter with $200 a month each and some individuals help out as well.

Operating the shelter is expensive, costing an estimated $335 a month per resident to run.

“This has not been an easy walk for us. When the money’s not there, it’s hard to feed them,” Looney said. “It’s hard to pay $600 and $800 per month light bills in the summer and in the winter it’s $1,500-$1,800, but that’s God’s problem, not mine. We’ve never had them cut off.

“God told me to run it. I told him to provide and we would do what we had to do. I don’t even look at that paper anymore, because when I look at the numbers, I can’t figure out how it happens.”

Looney doesn’t know why there are no shelters in Asheboro for women or families.

“I would open one tomorrow if I had the funding. It wouldn’t bother me a bit,” he said. “I’ve got a vision of a commons hall, kitchen type place here, with a bathroom, shower house on each side of it. There would be dorms out here for single men and single women, then another section for single men with children, single women with children, then families. We get calls all the time for families and women. They ring our house all the time. It’s sad to have to say, ‘I’m sorry, it’s just for men.’ “

Looney realizes that not everyone who comes through the door of the shelter is going to change.

“When someone comes to the door who has been involved with drugs and alcohol, they are still hungry,” he said. “We will try to get them help for their issues, if they want it. We have sent people off to drug rehab. We had a guy who came and asked me to hold his bed for three months while he got clean at Butner. He came back and helped us. He ran the shelter, did the maintenance.”

Looney officiated at his wedding. “He moved out and is doing great. All of them are not that way, but they are not all bad. If I have 30 guys out here and I made a difference in one, I made a difference.”

The mailing address for Totally Committed Ministries, of which Asheboro Shelter of Hope is a part, is PO Box 1851, Asheboro, NC 27204. If someone needs shelter, they should call (336) 318-0012.